Velvet Fusions

Paris: Judging from recently released recordings, some of our most talented
jazzmen and women are turning the volume down into a sort of velvet fusion
with commerciality. (Coincidentally or not, they all have one-word titles.)
Not to imply that this world-music tinged melange of intelligence and
accessibility can be called smooth or easy listening. It is not always
consonant, or even quiet. Careful attention to dynamics and rhythmic and
ethnic diversity are key. All of it is in addition. There is no down side;
only calm, interesting, relevant conversations with neither condescension nor
cliches. Sometimes you just might find, you get what you need.

BRAD MEHLDAU, "Largo" (Warner Brothers): Instrumentation includes "piano
Lwith putty treatment in lower two octaves" and "distorto-piano through eslie
with whammy pedal" (I did not make that up). Oboes and bassoons and French
horns play material by Radiohead ("Paranoid Android"), Antonio Carlos Jobim
("Wave") and the Beatles ("Dear Prudence," "Mother Nature's Son"). There are
rock backbeats, fancy studio tricks and electronic effects. The record
company hypes the album as "the jazz of the future."
Some critics are calling it pretentious. They are wrong. Mehldau's gorgeous
new album has such a strong sense of itself and of propriety and purpose that
it self-defines and justifies. His elegant keyboard lyricism swings somewhere
between Bud Powell and Brahms. The rhythm section is always in just the right
slot no matter what the stylistic slant, and there are quite a few. It is not
necessary to be able to analyze the sophisticated counter-rhythms to be
tickled by them. One of the most tasteful, adventurous and consistent
pianists around, Mehldau just gets better and better.

RON MILES, "Heaven" (Sterling Circle): Trumpeter Miles teaches at
Metropolitan State College in Denver and has been under the radar for too
long. In duo with Bill Frisell, one of the most respected guitarists of the
day, he plays originals and songs by Bob Dylan ("A Hard Rains a-Gonna Fall"),
Thelonious Monk, Hank Williams ("Your Cheatin' Heart") and Jelly Roll Morton.
Calling the album "minimalist" is an understatement. This is a duo without
ambition to sound bigger. Splitting notes with a brittle, breathy, innocent
sound (reminiscent of Johnny Coles with Gil Evans), Miles is more less than
more. He tried to "pick songs that go together to capture a joyous feeling."
Miles and Frisell create a fresh textural spectrum. With the guitarist's
haunting, detuned harmonies, the collective sound is like the sort of shining
a poet once described as coming from "shook foil."

JOSHUA REDMAN, "Elastic" (Warner Brothers): The star
saxophonist/composer/clothes-horse Redman is reinventing himself. Converging
currents like funk, jazz and world music in an attractive, direct, way, his
new center is viable on both esthetic and commercial levels -- a fine and
rare marriage. He sounds like -- this is a compliment as well as a prediction
of popularity -- an intelligent, soulful, tasteful version of Kenny G. The
catchy melodies he writes are pared down, quirky, repetitive, bluesy: smart.
Not that any one of them is necessarily a hit; they belong inexorably one
after the other. No hurry, no detours, no gratuitous technical displays. He
harmonizes and doubles himself electronically and he
is not too shy to squeak and honk. Brian Blade provides exactly the
percussion this particular moment in time and space requires. Keyboardist Sam
Yahel's imaginative and hypnotic chordal patterns, mostly on Hammond B3
organ, are never too busy; they include extended pedal drones. It would be
nice to avoid repeating the adjective "minimalist," but it's impossible to do
so when describing this music.

NGUYEN LE, "Purple" (Act): Celebrating Jimi Hendrix. Four bars of a Hendrix
lick and you immediately want to stop whatever you're doing. To hear him so
neatly updated is an ear-opener. "Music has no end," Le says. "Once created,
it belongs to those who dream with it." The Franco/Vietnamese Le, with his
unique combination of jazz and rock chops and Oriental-oriented world music
background, is a choice guitarist for a contemporary take on Hendrix.
Bass-guitarists Michel Alibo and Michelle Ndegeocello get closer to Jaco
Pastorius than to Noel Redding; and co-producer and drummer Terri Lyne
Carrington sounds like Mitch Mitchell after studying with Jack DeJohnette. Le
wisely chose female voices (Aida Khann, Corin Curschellas and Carrington) to
sing in place of Hendrix, thus stalling temptations to clone. "'Scuse me
while I kiss the sky." (The Nguyen Le Quartet will perform at the Cite de
Musique in Paris on Saturday, Oct 19th, for the opening of the "Jimi Hendrix
Backstage" exhibition.)

LEON PARKER, "Belief" (Columbia): Famously minimalist percussionist Parker
features African and Latin influences (steel pan, marimba, berimbau, claves,
hand drums) to arrive at a kind of grown-up inter-continental children's
music. There are dancing dialogues and soulful duets between Tom Harrell,
trumpet, Steve Wilson, saxophone, and Steve Davis on trombone. Joel Dorn's
production is notable, as are Ugonna Okegwo's tough and tender
bass lines. For Parker, being a musician is "both a responsibility and a
privilege."

Mike Zwerin published this piece originally in the International Herald
Tribune.